Max Collins - Executive Order

“ Check it out! ” the other one called, easier to hear, and both men moved around toward the front.

As soon as the guards skirted the corner, the three invaders sprinted across the sloping yard, staying low, then pressed themselves against the stone wall of the lower terrace. Carefully, a nine mil leading the way, Reeder climbed the few steps to the lower terrace. The patio with its furniture was unpopulated, and he kept going; the only entrance to the lodge on this side was back here on the upper terrace. Behind him came Wade with his AR-15 and Rogers with her Glock.

Six stairs from the lower to the upper terrace were navigated easily by Reeder, fanning his pistol to the left into a small garden, also unpopulated. He kept moving, past the windows of the sunroom, also empty (a nice break), as he made his way to a door he hoped would be unlocked — with those two guards stationed out here, that seemed possible. If not, Rogers had her lock picks, and she was damn good with them.

Their heads all swiveled toward the northeast when they heard more shots. Hardesy was definitely on the move, and they didn’t have a second to waste. The camp would be shutting down and locking up any moment now, if it hadn’t already.

Reeder tried the door, found it unlocked (another small break), then all three were inside, Wade closing them in. The cedar sunroom and the casual, open-beamed living room beyond were empty. Surely a silent alarm had to be going off right now. The alarm, Reeder knew, sounded in the command center and orders went out from there.

They checked the main floor and, surprisingly, found Aspen Lodge entirely deserted.

Wade asked, “Where the hell is everybody?”

Reeder said, “Likely a conference room in one of the other lodges. Digging in on the Azbekistani situation. That’s why they’re here.”

The sunroom door banged open and all three of them spun, weapons up.

Hardesy tramped in. “Christ, tumbleweed’s blowing through this place. What’s going on?”

They all lowered their weapons and Reeder asked, “I hope you aren’t leading a battalion of Marines our way.”

Hardesy shook his head. “I lost their asses in the woods. These young pups can’t compete with an old joe like me. Where the hell is everybody?”

Reeder said, “There’s a dozen or more buildings between here and Laurel Lodge to the north. The cabinet members, the President and VP could be in any of them. There’s conference rooms all over, as well as more informal areas where they can sit around working.”

“You ask me,” Hardesy said, “we got in way too easy.”

“Bullshit,” Wade said, jerking a thumb at Reeder. “We just got ourselves a tour guide who knows his way around.”

But Reeder said, “I don’t know whether we had crazy luck or somebody’s opening doors for us. Either way, we have a job — protecting the President and his cabinet. And that won’t be easy.”

“So we move to the next stage of the plan,” Rogers said, “and head down the tunnel to the command center, secure it and make sure the President is unharmed.”

“You and I will do that,” Reeder said to her. “Lucas and Reggie will stay here and make sure we’re not caught in a pincer movement.”

Hardesy was frowning. “You really think we should be splitting up? With the grounds and buildings crawling with Secret Service and Marines?”

“You’re the one that said this was too easy — if you’re right, Patti and I’ll need cover on this end. Lucas, watch the door we came in. Reg, take a position with an angle on the living room.”

Hardesy and Wade did that, then Reeder led Rogers back to the President’s bedroom. Larger than the otherwise similar cedar-walled guest quarters, the unpretentious space had a king bed with a folksy quilt, several comfy chairs, and a big flat-screen over a fieldstone fireplace. Next to a wooden-sliding-doors closet was the sleek non sequitur of a metal door.

Rogers asked, “Gun closet?”

Reeder shook his head. “Private elevator to the command-center tunnel.”

He flipped back the notched wooden cover of a round red button, which his right forefinger was poised to push, when her hand caught his wrist.

His eyes met hers as she said, “If you’re right about that pincer movement, the other half could be waiting in there. Or at least a gunman or two of it.”

They both had weapons in hand and were angled at either side of the metal door when he pressed the button. The door whispered open onto an empty elevator.

“Lucas said it,” she sighed. “Too easy.”

He said nothing.

“So we ride down,” she said, “and the door opens and a welcome committee is waiting with a who-knows-how-many-gun salute. Suggestions?”

“We take the ride,” he said, leaning in and pointing to the panel in the roof, “but from the observation deck.”

Her eyes opened momentarily wide. “Who doesn’t like to travel first class.”

They didn’t bother disabling the security camera — if they were expected, there was no point... not unless their action was caught on a monitor in time for any hosts below to be alerted.

The two-hundred-foot descent happened fast and it was all Reeder could do to haul Rogers up through the escape hatch and get it back in place before their descent slowed, then stopped.

The doors slid open, and bullets sprayed the car.

When the metallic hailstorm stopped, Reeder gazed down through the gridwork of the hatch where two men leaned in, one with a linebacker build, the other wiry, both with short dark hair, immaculate business suits, and AR-15s. Feds, probably Secret Service.

The wiry one said, “Where the hell...?”

When the linebacker stepped inside the car, Reeder kicked down on the hatch, swinging it to catch the man in the forehead and stagger him. Rogers dropped through the hatch, landing in a combat crouch. The wiry one was squeezing in, that AR-15 ready to spit, so she boot-heeled him in the face, knocking him back out and onto the concrete floor of the tunnel, spitting bloody teeth, not bullets. Reeder swung down right behind her, holding onto the edge of the roof, and kicking his already staggered opponent in the face as well, with the flats of both boots. The linebacker went backward and landed hard enough to knock himself cold, if he hadn’t already been.

Reeder and Rogers emerged from the elevator, nostrils twitching with cordite, ears ringing from all those rounds expended in the enclosed space. But footsteps in the tunnel were pounding their way, and that they could hear just fine.

They tucked back in the elevator as four more agents — summoned by the barrage of gunfire — rushed toward them, two with automatics, two with tactical machine pistols. Reeder and Rogers had their backs to either side of the inner doors. Nine mils in hand, angled up, they made eye contact.

Reeder lifted his head.

Rogers nodded.

He went high and she went low as they swung their guns through the open door, each picking the nearer machine-pistol agent, aiming center mass. The simultaneous squeezing of triggers doubled the thunder of the nine mils and both feds took a center hit and seemed to bow in thanks before going down in awkward sprawls, their weapons spinning and sliding out of reach.

The other two, faced with a lack of cover, retreated down the tunnel. Reeder and Rogers holstered their nine millimeters and acquired the AR-15s of the first two fallen agents and ammo as well. Moving quickly, they used zip ties to bind the hands behind the backs of all four agents.

They stood for a moment appraising their situation. The tunnel was an oversized hallway cutting through rough rock with a concrete floor and sporadic overhead lighting.

“They know we’re here now,” she said.